We need to pursue all available options simultaneously to effectively combat climate change. This includes:
Reducing reliance on carbon-based energy to lower emissions.
Implementing carbon capture and long-term storage solutions to remove excess CO₂ from the atmosphere.Planting trees is nice and should be done but isn’t a solution for drawdown
lol, all available options as long as we don't actually look at the root cause and just throw more money and tech at it in the hope it automagically stops
hint: infinite growth in a finite system doesn't work
PS: and if you care about results, we've been exploring every solution for quite some time now, you know after all our leaders get together in Paris or other fancy place and talk about clean solutions. Well we've been release more CO2 every year. The only time it dipped was during covid when ... you guessed it ... we had negative growth, aka degrowth. We never had so much sustainable energy production but we also never produced so much co2 and pollution
> (2) the large majority (almost 90%) of studies are opinions rather than analysis;
> (3) few studies use quantitative or qualitative data, and even fewer ones use formal modelling;
> (4) the first and second type tend to include small samples or focus on non-representative cases;
> (5) most studies offer ad hoc and subjective policy advice, lacking policy evaluation and integration with insights from the literature on environmental/climate policies;
> (6) of the few studies on public support, a majority concludes that degrowth strategies and policies are socially-politically infeasible;
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180092...
[1] 2.05 mmol/g at half capacity equals 45 mg/g per cycle, and ignoring heating and cooling times one can fit 27,976.6 cycles into a year. Overall that is 1.262 kg/g/y.
And that's if:
- the study can be replicated
- the study wasn't altered to boost publishing metrics
Remember super conductivity at room temperature from a few months back ?
According to their calculations, they're getting 1-2mmol/g adsorption. That means 44-88g of CO2 captured per kilogram of adsorbent.
It's not clear that this particular chemical is subject to a patent application, but they have applied for a patent on the entire class of chemicals: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220370981A1
I'm conflicted about this. while I'm skeptical about most patents this is exactly the kind of invention that patents are supposed to incentivise, and this guy obviously deserves a reward if his invention, like, literally saves the world. But - reading between the lines, while it's effective, it sounds like it's not yet cost effective. And making something cost effective is exactly the kind of thing that patents that restrict development to a single lab (which is what a class patent will do) will cause problems with.
Probably the best answer would be for someone rich to buy him out and licence it for free.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/10/23/capturing-carbon-from-t...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%E2%80%93organic_framew...
All they need to do their work is corporations leaving them alone.
Else it is an open cycle where co2 in == co2 out
Would love to see huge fields of them grown, then harvested, and the product turned to lumber and other longer-term carbon storage. Even composted or biocharred and the carbon amended into top soils (yes it won't stay there forever, but...) Assuming the process can be done without emitting more CO2 than is captured.
It's the same reason biofuels cannot be a general replacement for fossil fuels.
Growing trees is nice for other reasons, of course, and some limited CO2 capture would come along for the ride. This would not eliminate the desirability of other kinds of CO2 capture.
A solar farm doesn't need to be weeded, ploughed, planted, weeded again, topped, and harvested every year like corn does. You also don't need to ferment it to ethanol then burn it at a 70% loss to power a set of wheels.
Possible also that the vegetation growing between and under the panels sequesters carbon.
If you do the math the only sensible solution is hardcore degrowth starting yesterday.